An enormous plot of land in the Nevada desert — bigger than nearby Reno — has been the subject of local intrigue since a company with no history, Blockchains L.L.C., bought it for $170 million in cash this year. The man who owns the company, a lawyer and cryptocurrency millionaire named Jeffrey Berns, put on a helmet and climbed into a Polaris off-road vehicle last week to give a tour of the sprawling property and dispel a bit of the mystery.

He imagines a sort of experimental community spread over about a hundred square miles, where houses, schools, commercial districts and production studios will be built. The centerpiece of this giant project will be the blockchain, a new kind of database that was introduced by Bitcoin. After his driver stopped the Polaris on a high desert plateau, surrounded by blooming rabbit brush and a grazing herd of wild horses, Mr. Berns, who is 56, pointed to the highlights of his dream community. “You see that first range of mountains,” he said, pointing south. “Those mountains are the border of our South Valley. That’s where we’re going to build the high-tech park,” a research campus that would cover hundreds of acres. There are also plans for a college and an e-gaming arena.

this guy seems like a total megalomaniac, some sort of wannabe cult leader. i suppose maybe that's what happens when you make 9 figures in the crypto market.

if he wanted people to show up, he probably should have set up somewhere a little more inviting than the mojave desert.....

Give the guy a chance and as long as there no gathering every week then it ain't a cult. But I'm not expecting him to succeed either. I just want him make a huge noise that will make anyone attracted or interested in crypto.

if he wanted people to show up, he probably should have set up somewhere a little more inviting than the mojave desert.....

Exactly for a city to prosper you need far more than databases, you won't see people moving in the middle of nowhere so they could record on the blockchain for eternity the times they went to the toilet. Nobody making way above the average will end up in a place you can't spend that money and to build it from scratch...it takes enormous amounts, the whole marketcap of ETH for example barely matching the annual budget of London . Only building roads and infrastructure will cost him 20 times more than the land.

this guy seems like a total megalomaniac, some sort of wannabe cult leader. i suppose maybe that's what happens when you make 9 figures in the crypto market.

if he wanted people to show up, he probably should have set up somewhere a little more inviting than the mojave desert.....

Sometimes people have the best of intentions with these things and want to build their own little utopia or place where they can live how they want, but they do often end up going sour or turning into cults. The Beach by Alex Garland is one of my favorite novels and read that if you want to know how they usually end -- or you can watch the film but it's obviously a diluted version.

I think it's only a matter of time before someone tries to create their own country -- or cult -- with their own cryptocurrency. I think a few people have already actually tried but they usually find resistance in some capacity due to laws or whatnot. I know people are trying to build seasteads financed or involving bitcoin but I'm not sure of their current status. Trying to build your own cryptoland is a cool idea and who ideally wouldn't want to live in such a place, but as I mentioned above I'd be very worried about them turning sour very quickly. The trouble is that the megalomaniacs and tyrants usually always muscle their way to the top and that's when the problems start and little disagreements over how people want to live can quickly turn into civil wars and we know what tyrants will do to try keep their power.